FWIW, Here's a copy of the Keynote newsletter I receive.
Mission-Critical! -- The Internet performance newsletter
Issue #110
IN THIS ISSUE
Bandwidth quest never quite over for techies
Can't get cable or DSL? How you can look to the stars for help
There's No Accounting for Internet Unreliability
Cupid's E-Arrows Missing Their Mark
Surf's up for U.S. Web users
Broadband: There's no place like home
Broadband bright in FCC's future
Why are we waiting?
Download downtime gets filled -- but not always productively
Picking Up the Connection Pace
Calling Atlanta and Dallas, Keynote can help you win!!
Join Keynote At Content Delivery Networks, 2001, New York - Feb 21-23
Internet performance update for week of 2/4 - 2/10
How to SUBSCRIBE and UNSUBSCRIBE to this newsletter
~~~~~~~~~~
Bandwidth quest never quite over for techies
(Scripps Howard News)
Bandwidth is to computer nerds like candy is to toddlers.
There's never enough.
I was reminded of that when I found a 2,400-baud Hayes modem in a drawer
at work.
Not that long ago I pined for one of those $1,000 babies as I "surfed"
CompuServe at $24 per hour at 300 baud.
Now 100 times that speed seems a bit slow.
Full Article:
courierpress.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Can't get cable or DSL?
How you can look to the stars for help
(ZDNET via MSNBC)
Having trouble getting a fast Internet connection? Try seeking help from
above--literally. High-speed Internet access via satellite has become
affordable and easily available; you can even buy it at Radio Shack,
though I'm not sure you should.
There are two companies offering high-speed Internet via satellite. The
oldest and most established is DirecPC (www.direcpc.com, NOT
directpc.com), which is owned by Hughes Network Systems and is a cousin
of the DirecTV service. The second, called StarBand (www.starband.com),
is owned by a partnership that includes Microsoft and the parent of the
Dish Network satellite TV service.
Full Article: msnbc.com
~~~~~~~~~~
There's No Accounting for Internet Unreliability
(LA Times)
I have five personal Internet accounts. Something is seriously wrong here.
I could get by with two accounts: one land-line connection--such as
dial-up, cable or DSL--and one wireless. Instead, what I have is three
standard dial-up accounts and two wireless accounts. It's an insane
situation.
My decision to maintain those accounts, however, is quite rational.
Painful, but rational.
The problem is that Internet access isn't reliable. In fact, as I write
this, three of my five Internet accounts have something wrong with them:
They can't send mail, or I can't log on, or the connection keeps dying.
These problems ebb and flow, and no one account is better or worse than
any other. So I juggle all five in order to guarantee that I have access
to a working account when I absolutely need it.
Full Article:
latimes.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Cupid's E-Arrows Missing Their Mark
(Industry Standard)
Some greeting-card sites, overloaded with love-struck Web surfers, are
freezing up and sending error messages instead of sweet nothings.
On a day when they should be at center stage in the role of Cupid,
online greeting-card sites have been miserably off the mark this
Valentine's Day, their busiest day of the year.
Love-struck consumers hoping to send free affections via cyberspace
Wednesday morning were greeted with disheartening error messages,
apologies and annoyingly long downloads at such sites as Hallmark.com,
AmericanGreetings.com and BlueMountain.com. Online flower companies also
wilted, sometimes even standing up customers.
Full Article:
thestandard.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Surf's up for U.S. Web users
(C|Net)
Internet penetration has reached 60 percent in the United States, with
more than 168 million people logging onto the Web from either homes or
workplaces in January, according to a report released Wednesday.
Viewed separately, home Internet access accounted for 58 percent, or 162
million people, a Nielsen/NetRatings report has found. Internet
penetration at work consisted of 14 percent of all Web access, or 41
million office workers. That compares to year-ago figures of home
penetration at 45 percent, or 123 million people, and at-work access at
12 percent, or 33 million Web surfers.
The Nielsen/NetRatings study reinforces a growing body of evidence that
shows the Internet is increasingly becoming part of consumers' everyday
lives in the United States. People are going beyond researching
information on the Internet to conducting other daily activities or
transactions, such as filing taxes and shopping.
Full Article: news.cnet.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Broadband: There's no place like home
(MSNBC via ZDNet)
For years, broadband Internet has been a glimmering hope on the horizon
for both users who want the high-speed, always-on connection, and Web
companies that want to offer better videos, premium services and more
engaging advertising.
Still, for all its promise, a combination of high user costs and poor
infrastructure has kept it from really catching on with home users. But
that may finally be ending, as broadband access seems to finally be
catching on with home users, according to a study by Nielsen/NetRatings
released Thursday.
Home broadband usage leapt 143 percent between December 1999 and
December 2000 to reach 11.7 million homes - 12 percent of households
with Internet access, according to the study.
Full Article: zdnet.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Broadband bright in FCC's future
(C|Net)
This town's new telecommunications chief is determined to rein in the
involvement of the Federal Communications Commission in the
telecommunications industry, but the FCC's top Democrat still believes
the agency can be an active promoter of broadband.
With the current commission split 2-2 on party lines, longtime
Democratic Commissioner Susan Ness has as much say right now on those
policies as does the agency's Republican chairman, Michael Powell. And
Powell, despite his impulse toward governmental restraint, has cited
broadband as the greatest success of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
His Democratic colleagues share that enthusiasm.
In an interview Thursday, Ness promoted FCC activism on broadband,
particularly in getting services to rural areas and in promoting new
technologies such as 3G (third-generation) wireless. Commission politics
would not be a deterrent, she vowed.
Full Article: news.cnet.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Why are we waiting?
(BBC)
You could be waiting a long time for that fast net link
Everyone was supposed to have high-speed unmetered internet access at
home by now. So what's gone wrong, asks BBC News Online internet
reporter Mark Ward
Typical web users spend a third of their time sleeping, a third watching
files download, and a third waiting to have their fast link to the
internet installed.
As anyone who has signed up for a fast net connection knows, Broadband
Britain is taking a long time to arrive.
And a lot of people do seem to be waiting, judging by the comments
posted to net discussion groups dedicated to broadband access in Britain.
Full Article:
news.bbc.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~
Download downtime gets filled -- but not always productively
(Detroit Free Press)
A study released Sunday estimates that businesses lose $11 billion a
year in productivity because of the time employees spend waiting for
work-related Web pages, e-mail and files to download over slow Internet
connections.
That's pretty interesting, but the study raises a much more pressing
question: What are all of you doing with all that time spent waiting?
More than 70 readers over two days took a break from downloading the
latest version of Solitaire to tell us. We started to notice that they
fell into a few groups:
Full Article: freep.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Picking Up the Connection Pace
(eMarketer)
According to Nielsen/NetRatings, the number of people accessing the
internet from home in the US via high-speed (integrated digital service
network, local area network, cable modem and digital subscriber line)
connections jumped by 147.7% between December 1999 and December 2000.
The report found that the number of people accessing the internet via
28.8/33.6 kilobits per second (Kbps) modems fell by 27.3% -- the
greatest percentage decline between 1999 and 2000.
Nielsen/NetRatings found that despite the increase in high-speed
connectivity, the greatest percentage of people accessing the internet
from home currently do so with a 56 Kbps connection.
Full Article:
emarketer.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Calling Atlanta and Dallas, Keynote can help you win!!
(Keynote)
Ensuring a high performance Web site can be a challenge, but it's a
challenge that Keynote can help you win! This quarter's very successful
KeyEducation High Performance Web Design and Management Seminar Series
comes to a close in Atlanta and Dallas next week.
Click here for more information, and to register for these last two
seminars of the series.
Full Article:
keynote.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Join Keynote At Content Delivery Networks, 2001, New York - Feb 21-23
The Content Delivery Networks event includes keynote presentations,
conference sessions and seminars led by experts, innovators and pioneers.
Discuss, debate, collaborate and profit from the latest in
ContentDelivery Networking. Focused on the complete value chain of
content distribution, the conference will cover the latest technologies
and their business implications. Join us at Booth #239. For more
information:
keynote.com
~~~~~~~~~~
Internet performance update for week of 2/4 - 2/10
Keynote Business 40 Index
Overall At Work Experience: 3.25 seconds
Top performer: Yahoo 0.57
Worst performer: (anonymous) 12.90
Full report with graph:
keynote.com
Keynote Consumer 40 Index
Overall At Home Modem Experience: 17.16 seconds
Top performer: Ameritrade 3.58
Worst performer: (anonymous) 41.66
Full report with graph:
keynote.com
Keynote Web Broker Trading Index
Overall Trading Experience: 12.92 seconds
Top performer: CSFB Direct 4.18
Worst performer: (anonymous) 24.48
Full report with graph:
keynote.com
Keynote Streaming 20 Index
Stream Quality: 2.04
Rendering Score: 90.5%
Full report with graph:
keynote.com
Keynote Retail Benchmark
Retail Transaction Performance: 11.89 seconds
Retail Home Page Performance: 3.47 seconds
Measurements from 5 am - 9 pm Sunday - Saturday
~~~~~~~~~~
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, DO NOT reply
to this message. Instead, please send email to
majordomo@keynote.com
with one of the following two lines in the BODY of your message:
subscribe newsletter
unsubscribe newsletter
Feedback and suggestions to: dantodd@keynote.com
Please forward Mission-Critical! to others who will find it valuable.
Mission Critical! may be distributed only in its complete form.
Copyright (c) 2000 by Keynote Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
|
